To Prevent a Cold
by Acerbitas
Summary: Kakuzu loses a battle he doesn't know he's fighting. KakuzuxHidan


**To Prevent a Cold**

Kakuzu kicked the broken bottle pieces under the sagging bed-frame, teeth grinding with frustration. The rain was picking up its pace, and water sloshed against the bleary windowpane. Not only that, it was getting though the several large holes in the roof, and for some odd reason he hadn't thought to bring any large buckets with him. The remnants of dinner cooled on plates on the floor, but aggravation breeds stubbornness, and Kakuzu refused to touch his creation. The stupid brat had run off again, claiming ritual. That's what Kakuzu liked to call it, claiming ritual. Hidan would always disappear whenever he lost a battle, physical or otherwise, yelling and cursing about needing in pray. In reality, Kakuzu knew he wanted to go sulk and moan.

Kakuzu scowled viciously at the door. Let him go plod around in the rain and get sick. Kakuzu didn't care; he was quite comfortable inside. Seating himself with a bit of trepidation on the bed, the bounty hunter leaned back onto the wall and glared at the spider-web infested ceiling. Maybe he'd just eat all the food, huh? Maybe he'd just eat it all and barricade the godforsaken door. Kakuzu slipped lower onto the bed, and let his shoes slide across broken floorboards.

Hidan wanted to stay at the inn. Hidan would get dirty. Hidan wouldn't get to have a nice shower. Hidan wanted to sleep in a real bed. Hidan wanted—fuck Hidan. A spider crawled towards his toes with a curiosity that was quite deadly, and Kakuzu took satisfaction in squishing its life into the floor. Hidan didn't manage the goddamn finances of their little party of sunshine and roses. In fact, Hidan didn't do damn much of anything. Except take expensive showers. And talk. There was definitely the talking aspect going on there, but Kakuzu was pretty sure he could do without Hidan's little insights on life and the world.

Wind rattled the window with furious energy, and a branch snapped against the glass. Kakuzu's mouth sunk into a disgusted frown. Hidan would be soaked by now, no matter where he was. He was going to trek water into their…cosy…resting place, and Kakuzu was not going to be pleased. Eyes wandering to the squashed guts near his toe, Kakuzu examined the green gush that had spilled from the spider's mutilated remains.

The door slammed open, and with a rough curse Kakuzu jumped to his feet, expecting a soggy Hidan to come in stomping and whining. The wind rushed in, whistling hollowly. Bam! The door slammed into the wall, but its frame was empty, and there was nobody there. Letting loose a string of obscenities, he grasped the rotting doorknob and forced the door shut against the wind.

"Fuck," he muttered, back pressed firmly against the rebellious entrance. The food had been scattered by the windstorm, and a rotting apple ambled towards his feet. "Just fuck." He kicked it, and the resulting thud echoed on the wooden walls. "Damn you, you stupid little pansy." For about a minute he stood there, glowering at the ceiling. He seriously didn't give a damn.

And with that, he stomped into the wind.

The rain was harsh, and Kakuzu began to regret leaving his cloak in the shack. The only hint he had to Hidan's whereabouts was that Hidan usually liked to engage in his rituals near rivers. And so he turned west and sloshed through several monstrous puddles, fists clenching as water soaked through his sandals. Hidan was so getting it. Seriously, the fucker was as dead as Kakuzu could possibly make him. The farther he got, the stronger the urge was to kill the immortal as much as, well, he could possibly be killed. A tree swung a large branch in his face, almost as if to say: no intelligent human being should be out tonight!

Well, Hidan definitely wasn't a genius, but Kakuzu didn't know what he was doing here. He could just hear Hidan's whiny voice echoing in his head. Haha, moron! Seriously man, you're retarded. Retarded and _ugly_.

Fuck you, Hidan.

Kakuzu's nose hurt, and he flung the twig out of his way, nails making scratches against newly formed bark. As it ripped, he delighted in the wet curls that stuck under his fingernails. Take that, world! He kicked the tree. Hard.

"Fuck. Shit. Damn. Motherfucker." He could feel the usual rage flaming up in his chest. It sparked, ignited, and spread rapidly to his head. Chakra grasped the branch and snapped it in half, and with a grunt Kakuzu flung it behind him.

He stomped onwards, rage burning up all the rational thoughts in his head. The wetter he got, the less his brain functioned properly. By the time he got to the river, he was about to kill anything that moved.

And there, up a pace, was Hidan, squirming in the dirt and moaning as he dragged a pike into his stomach. He was definitely moving, which was bad for his sake, but not for Kakuzu.

"Hey, fucker!" Kakuzu sloshed through ankle deep mud, cursing the soppy mess sinking into the cracks between his toes. "Hey, fuckface!" The pike was slippery and rusty under his touch. With a forceful yank he dragged it through Hidan's intestines and flung it into the river.

"Ow, what the fuck, man?" Hidan screeched like he hadn't been the one stabbing himself with a rusty pike, hands going to his exposed innards. "Goddamn, that fucking hurts. Fuck. Damn you! Why the hell are you here? Go away: I'm trying to pray!" There was a lengthy pause as Hidan poked at his mutilated chest. "Dear Jashin, now rain is getting into my liver!"

"That's your own damn fault." The site of Hidan's chest wide open and bleeding was dimming the red that had been floating in front of his eyes. "You're coming back to our fucking five star hotel and you are going to shut the fuck up while I try to sleep."

"I already told you I'm praying, jeez. Go away, asshole!" The priest shut his eyes and steadied his shaky breathing, liver battling a torrent of rain as it struggled to reassemble itself. The calmer and healthier Hidan got, the less pleased Kakuzu became. When Hidan started to mumble a low, repetitive chant, Kakuzu couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm soaked, tired, and I fucking hate you." Kakuzu's temples throbbed with a newly emerging migraine. "Get off your self-righteous ass or I'm going to pick you up and carry you back."

"What the fuck, man, seriously," Hidan murmured with antagonizing serenity. "Why are you still here? You retarded or something? If you didn't want to get wet you shouldn't have come all the way out here!"

"You don't know why I'm here?" Fake sweetness poured from his lips with delicious irony. "I'm here because your massive intelligence has informed you its perfectly sane to be out in this weather. Maybe this didn't occur to you, but you're going to catch a damn cold."

Hidan's eyed him, and the sudden shrewdness in his eyes made Kakuzu feel unease slither up his spine. "Oh? And why do you give a shit, huh?"

The rain made angry sounds against the swollen mud, and Hidan's eyes scanned him, hungry, like an evil hawk's. Kakuzu didn't know what lay behind those eyes, but whatever it was, it wasn't warm and fuzzy. For a moment he didn't say anything.

"Because you're going to whine about it tomorrow, and I'm going to have to hear you bitch like a teenage girl." His voice was easily captured by the wind.

"Heh, is that so?" Hidan smiled a crazy, unwell smile. His teeth glistened, shining with rabid hunger against the cold glow of the moon. "Well then, you're an idiot."

Kakuzu had an uneasy feeling that somehow he had lost a battle. They made it back to the dilapidated house with little trouble and an unusual silence.

The floorboards stank of stale, uneaten fish and huge puddles of water pooled on the floor. Hidan wrinkled up his nose, fingers tensing and mouth morphing into the very picture of disgust. "Eww. I said that I wanted to stay—"

"—Don't start," Kakuzu growled, scooping up the nasty, scaly fish pieces and soggy bread. He threw a piece at Hidan for good measure, and it bounced off his nose.

"Ugh!" Hidan exclaimed, dancing in a ridiculous fashion over every single puddle. "Ugh, this bites, man. Why are you such a hard ass with money? Fucking pagan."

"So in your religion, you're supposed to run around on spending sprees, huh?"

Hidan glared at him, lip turning downward in a pout that meant Kakuzu had beaten him. Which was such an oh so difficult thing to do, of course. "Fuck you," he finally grumbled. "I'm soaked. I feel sick, and I'm hungry."

"It's your own damn fault," Kakuzu repeated for the umpteenth time. The wind roared in when he yanked open the door, and the fish splattered back on him when he tried to throw them out the floor. With a roar of frustration, Kakuzu slammed the door and wiped the food remnants off of him, cursing like hell.

Hidan was very amused, and stopped complaining for about ten seconds to laugh at him. "Well that was pretty stupid, numbskull."

"Shut the fuck up!" Kakuzu yelled, and afterwards decided he didn't give a shit anymore. "I just walked all around in that fucking storm, freezing my damn ass off so I could make sure you weren't doing something more stupid than usual!" Hidan wasn't the only one wet and sick! Fuck you, asshole.

Hidan opened his mouth with that special little sneer, pride glittering in his eyes. "You didn't have to, you know."

But his voice sounded strange, like it had been put through a filter that took away all the things that were supposed to be there. The only thing left was the whine, and it sounded small and insignificant when not coupled with its friends.

Kakuzu smashed a board in with his fist, and rain water soon followed. "Take off your clothes."

"Excuse me?" Hidan said in disbelief, sneer back with a vengeance. Somehow his manliness had been insulted, despite the fact that he didn't have any.

"Take off your fucking clothes." Kakuzu's head was pounding, and he wanted to sleep. Oh hell, he wanted some sleep, and he didn't want to think about Hidan or anything that came out of Hidan's mouth for several hours. Days. Weeks. He could be having some nice peace and quiet right now if he hadn't thought about Hidan shivering and mutilating himself in the rain. Damn he felt nuts.

"What?" Hidan looked vaguely pleased with himself. "So you can rape my sorry ass because you now feel entitled to a good fuck?"

He knew he shouldn't smash another board, and wished for another one of those spiders, preferably a really large one that would squish nicely. "Because your clothes are soaked, genius, and you shouldn't sleep in them."

"Horny bastard," Hidan mumbled just loud enough for Kakuzu to hear.

"I can't stand you," Kakuzu said in a huff. "I don't want to rape you, and I certainly I don't want to look at your dick. Sorry to burst your inflated self-esteem." The wind howled with laughter. The one time Kakuzu decided to do something (sort of) nice for somebody, it blew up in his face. He tore his sandals off and threw them into the corner with as little force as he could bring himself to use.

Prevent

"That's news to me." Hidan shrugged just a little bit, that shrug that said, whatever you say, but I know better. "Don't look at me." The soggy clothing shifted off his shoulders, and Kakuzu realized his partner was shaking like mad. As he peeled it from his chest, Kakuzu stared as soppy reddish water slipped onto the floor. "I'm cold," Hidan whispered, "I'm fucking cold." He slipped onto the floor and wound his hands around his naked form, biting rabidly at his lip. "I said, fucking don't look at me!" He rocked back and forth, now bare feet curling into his ruined robe.

Kakuzu looked away. Plodding over to the bed, he picked up his nice, clean robe and flung it in Hidan's face. "You're going to catch a cold."

"How many times have you said that?"

"Not enough to get it into your thick skull."

He expected a snappy remark and didn't get one. Sitting on the bed, he tugged his shirt and pants off and flung the thin sheet over his body. He watched Hidan rock back and forth some more, fingers fondling his necklace. The robe sat over his head like a hat. When Hidan noticed Kakuzu looking at him, his mouth twisted into a familiar grin.

In those moments that are in-between sleeping and waking, Kakuzu felt a warm body crawl over him, curious hands pressing against his chest and face. That body curled up beside his chest, and Kakuzu was too tired to complain as he drifted off to sleep.

---

Lol, Hidan is full-clothed and Kakuzu is naked, unlike every picture I've ever seen. Kakuzu needs to be naked more often.


End file.
